Blinded
by KittyCat95
Summary: Will's last scene from the book(before the epilogue), elaborated. Oneshot. Spoilers to the end of the book. Possible discontinuity warning.


**Disclaimer: I do not own _Beastly_, nor the characters.**

**Spoilers for the end of the book.**

**Possible discontinuity warning.**

**Oneshot.**

* * *

_If someone has been blind all their lives, they say their dreams will be sightless also. It is not the case with me. In my dreams, I see as vividly as I remember doing in my youth. Sometimes I am in my grandmother's rose garden, with a million flowers blooming around me. Sometimes I am in my old home, going over my old bookcases. Sometimes – often – I am playing baseball. I see the ball flying through the air. I swing the bat, and with a loud crack, the ball is flying in the opposite direction and I am running, the field a green-and-brown blur around me, then I see the white base fill my vision, and the whistle rings out. I laugh, breathless, raising my eyes to the sky. The sheer beauty of the blue, the contrast it makes with the green grass and white clouds is wondrous. Then I wake up, and I am once again in darkness, trapped in this body, unable to see, unable to run, nothing left but the smell of the rose Magda puts in my room daily._

_Other dreams are not so nice. The worst nightmares, unsurprisingly, have something to do with my eyes. Perhaps I am in a forest, and something is chasing me. I try to run, but my vision gets more and more blurred until I see only black, hearing my pursuer get closer and closer and not being able to do anything about it. At other times I am being tortured, spikes hammered into my eyes – bugs eating them out – acid thrown – hit by arrows – blinded. It doesn't help that my life is like a continuation of such nightmares. There is a horrifying moment, just after I wake, when I hit the darkness and realise I still can't see. The dreams could well be memories from the past where my eyes are concerned._

_Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I had been like those who have been born blind. Perhaps it would hurt less if I had never known what it is like to see. As the saying goes, you can't miss what you've never had. But I still love the roses, the roses whose scent always brings back the memories of my grandmother's garden. Then I realise, as much as the memories hurt me, they are my greatest treasures. No matter how painful, I do not ever want to give them up. Would I have appreciated those memories as what they were, had I been able to see? I think not. Not to mention it was only my blindness that led me to meet first Pilot, and then Adrian and Magda, the people I care about the most. Perhaps my blindness was a blessing in disguise. Yes, that is the way I should think about it. Perhaps if I keep telling myself that, one day, the wound would heal and smart no more._

* * *

Somebody is hammering on my door. Even only half awake, I know it to be Adrian. No one else would wake me at what I judge by the time of the year and the amount of sunlight – or lack thereof – to be 5 o'clock in the morning. Pilot is awake also, I hear him scuttling around. I am sleepy. Yesterday had been a long day, and I do not welcome this intrusion. Barely able to open my eyes, I somehow make myself stumble out of bed and to the door. My fingers grope for the doorknob, and I turn and open it.

Then I feel an intense pain in my eyes, and I instinctively raise my hand to shield them. The motion feels strange, and I think out of the corner of my mind that I had not had to shield my eyes for a long, long time. A couple of seconds pass in confusion before I realise that this instinctive response was triggered because the pain in question was caused by _light_. I squint, and there is something red in front of my eyes that I recognise to be a hand. _My_ hand. What is happening? Am I still dreaming? I must be, for how else would I be able to _see_?

I lower my hand, and I see two figures standing in front of me. One is a handsome young man of perfect proportions, the other a young girl with a pretty smile. Adrian and Lindy.

Adrian tells me he has broken the curse. He told me that he had negotiated my sight with the witch, a long time ago, I recall. I didn't believe him at the time. I thought he was just getting me to co-operate. But, apparently, miracles do happen. Unless, of course, this whole thing is just a dream, although that hypothesis is getting more unlikely by the second. My dreams aren't ever like this.

I send the two on their way (to find Magda or something) and stand in my room, struck dumb. I take in my room, the place that has been my sanctuary for so long. Pilot is whining at my feet, trying to get my attention, and I absent-mindedly reach down and stroke his head. The softness is familiar. The colour of the fur, how the ends seem to be made of golden thread, is not. I kneel down beside him and kiss his nose. His black nose, shaped like a wonky triangle, slightly shiny due to the moisture. I stand up and stumble to the bathroom. Stumble, because apparently my brain isn't used to translating the input from the visual receptors into a three-dimensional area my muscles can navigate. I'll get used to it, I think, and the thought makes me laugh, for I had spent my teenage years trying to get used to living without sight. Now I have all of my adult life to get used to living with it. Still smiling, I make my way into the bathroom and flick the switch. I'd never had any reason to touch that switch before, and it sticks briefly, but the room is filled with a warm orange glow. Right across me is the mirror.

The man looking out of the mirror appears to be a stranger. The last image I have of myself is a young boy just going into puberty. I move closer to the mirror, turning my head this way and that for a full view of my face. The light catches my face the way I remember it catching my father's, and from that, I slowly match the features to the boyish ones in my memory. I realise my pyjamas are a horrid shade of grey, and that sets me laughing again. Why didn't anybody tell me? Well, now I don't need anybody to tell me. I can see for myself.

I make my way out of the bathroom and open my closet. There they are, my clothes, arranged neatly in stacks. I grab the topmost shirt and take in its pattern, compare it with the visible texture of the fabric. Then, in a bout of giddiness, I throw the shirt aside and grope for another. I throw that aside as well, and start dismantling my closet, giggling like a child. This one has terrible colour, that one's cut is way too bad, this one is okay but it would clash terribly with my jeans… When I stop, the floor of my room is covered in clothes and Pilot is rolling all over them. I let him; most of them were terrible anyway. I can go buy new ones, and I can look at them and decide for myself which ones I want to get... The thought thrills me up again, and I quickly throw on the first things I can get my hands on, tossing my pyjamas on the bed. Farewell to all those days of frustrating neatness! Now I can be as messy as I want, and I'll still find everything! I instinctively reach for my cane, and after some hesitation during which I consider throwing it into the fire I take it with me. That cane had been a most trustworthy guide, and I want to honour it. However, I unhook Pilot's leash from his collar and let him run ahead of me. I follow him out of the room and see the staircase winding down in front of me. Suddenly I am nervous. I carefully place my foot on the first step, clutching the railing tightly with my free hand. I step down once, twice, and it's so easy when you can see the stairs. As I get comfortable, I start going faster and faster, until by the time I reach the first floor I'm practically flying down them. In front of me is the glass door leading to the greenhouse. I open the door and head out.

Roses. Millions of flowers surrounding me from all sides. Red. White. Pink. Yellow. Every colour I have imagined them being, and then more. The scent is intoxicating. Once again giving myself over to an urge, I rush out of the greenhouse and out the front door of the house. Then I am running, stumbling every now and then but not caring. I see pilot beside me, running also, and wonder if that dog had ever had a chance to run in his life. The speed, the movement, even the cold is exhilarating. I can see my breath streaming out in white streaks, and laugh breathlessly. People turn to look at me as if I am crazy, but I don't care. I see a park and head into it, coming to a stop in its middle, panting, out of breath. The greenish brown of the dying grass and the red-yellow leaves hit me, and everything is so beautiful. The sky is so blue, even bluer than it is in my dreams.

Then I hear a familiar thud. The sound of a baseball striking a bat. I turn to see a group of boys having a mini-game of baseball. I go over and ask them if I can join, and to my surprise, they let me. I feel the bat in my hand, see the ball flying towards me, and I swing my bat around to meet it. Then I am running again, the world flies around me, and I know I can keep running forever.


End file.
